The Life's Way - A Lifestyle and Technology Blog By Aashish Rai

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Tuesday, 21 June 2016

A #Brand in Feature - @SamsungSA #Samsung #SouthAfrica #TheLifesWay

Hi Guys,

Samsung in South Africa and Rest of Africa is so huge in terms of market share. It’s all because of their unlimited array of products featuring the needs of every household to the needs of business professionals. They are the number one mobile manufacturers in Africa and keeps innovating themselves time and again. No Wonder, they are the top choice of South African Youth as per the latest Ask Afrika Youth Brands Survey. Launching People really created the entrepreneurs from the Youth across Africa which is a great CSR initiative from the brand in collaboration with METIME.

When I started blogging and became a member of biggest blogging network in India named Indiblogger.in, I saw Samsung’s blogging contest where they chose some of the top bloggers to review their devices first and I though it to be a great opportunity which I missed. I got the chance and became a part of Samsung’s journey when I saw the South Africa Blogger’s Challenge for the first time on twitter. From that moment since I always dreamt of participating in the contest and winning the same. The dream came true and I won the first year’s blogger challenge. During the first year when contest was underway, I got invited to the launch event in Cape Town for Note 4. It was my first trip to the mother city and I thoroughly enjoyed the hospitality of the brand along with the goodies bag they gave during the event containing Level in-earphones. I have attended Samsung S7, Note 5 and Launching People events till date.

The launch event of the Samsung are full of its distributors, employees, VIPs and other media guests. The event is always grand for the niche segment products like Galaxy S and Note series and small ones for other products like Washing Machines, Launching People etc. They also keeps on launching their new stores in various locations across the country from time to time. I received a portable mobile charger at the launch of S7edge and for Note 5 they only gave non-branded 8GB pen drive. The launch event of Note generally happens in the form of World Tour in Cape Town but for Note 5 it happened locally in Johannesburg. The budget has been cut it seems a lot from the first time when they gave earphones to now when they only gave the 8GB pen drive. That’s the general trend in the technology market and same was valid for LG Electronics and Sony Mobiles launch events too. I generally remember the launch event with the branded products especially made for the event that you receive from the brand but if you have not received anything you generally feel not as good as with the product. I can’t complain though as I love the experience of getting invited to the events and taking unlimited photographs at the launch.

Samsung has collaborations with some of the top brands (Swarovski, Mont Blanc & many others) around the world to produce accessories for its Galaxy S and Note series of smartphones and phablets. They have tie ups with Expresso Show and sponsors many TV/online channels and Katlego Maboe is the MC for several of their launch events. They also sponsored Chelsea Football Club for 10 years which ended in 2015. I still have a Samsung’s Chelsea pedometer from London in one of their events to promote UEFA soccer championships. They have also been sponsoring Winter Olympics since 1998. I have been seeing the whole arrivals sections covered in Samsung’s Galaxy series of smartphones advertisement on O.R.Tambo Airport in Johannesburg, South Africa since my two and half years in this country.

They were the first one to venture into Gear VR, Gear 360 VR and Gear smartwatches. They are always the front runners to develop and capture the markets as soon as possible. They invest a lot of money in research and development of the new products. With the latest launch scheme from Galaxy S7 and S7 edge, the Gear VR will reach a lot of African households. The S7 phone is capable of shooting videos that are suitable to see on the Gear VR provided with the smartphone.

Samsung is different from other brands in terms of not launching the lite versions of the top niche products like LG have G4 Beat, Huawei having P8/P9 Lite, Sony Z3/Z5 Compact and even Apple having iPhone SE or iPhone 5C. They have different series altogether targeting youth and middle market segment going by the name of J and A series of Galaxy smartphones. May be in the future based on the worldwide response towards the lite/compact series we might see the compact versions of full featured Galaxy S series of smartphones.

Samsung is very fast to adapt to the changing markets as they have the might and flexibility to spend and create the right opportunity as they want. I bought my first Samsung LCD TV in India way back in 2008 when everyone was going for Sony Bravia TVs. I again bought another Samsung LCD TV in 2013 for my parent’s room because I was so impressed by my LCD TV. I have the luxury of Samsung’s Mirrorless camera NX300 which takes great low light photographs and Series 6 - 65” UHD TV bringing me the visual pleasures that no other TV can bring.

I know how much I have worked to get both of them and once their PR Company told me that I am their unofficial brand ambassador. Though I am not using any of their smartphones but I simply adore the Note phablet series by the brand. I loved my seven days with Note4 and two weeks with S6 and S7 smartphones and once with Samsung's Tab4 Tablet. Check out the several images posted on my Instagram handle and 1000 of tweets going out for the brand along with 30+ blog posts for the brand. All the work done is totally free of cost as I wanted to reach a point in my blogging life where other brands wants me to work for them. This happened and brought me great opportunities from India in 2015 to help me buy Nikon SB-900 flash for my DSLR camera. I am still looking for opportunities here in South Africa to get day-to-day gadgets to use and keep and in return I will hashtag the brand sponsoring the same. I would love to have Note 5 as my primary gadgets if sponsored by Samsung South Africa.